Original Article Published by Medium.
San Jose, Calif. and Zug, Switzerland — 18 August 2020 — SunSpec Alliance (SunSpec) has joined as a member of Energy Web. Today the two organizations also jointly announced a strategic partnership to co-develop digital standards, protocols, solutions, and certifications that support ‘plug & play’ system interoperability for solar PV and battery energy storage technologies. Together they’ll enlist energy market participants such as grid operators, renewable energy developers, and distributed energy resource (DER) providers for projects focused on digitalization and grid integration of DERs.
SunSpec is a trade alliance of roughly 100 solar and storage companies spanning Asia, Europe, and North America, including industry heavyweights such as Canadian Solar, LG Electronics, NexTracker, Pika Energy (Generac), Q Cells (Hanwha), Schneider Electric, SMA, Sonnen, Stem, SunPower, Sunrun, and Tesla. The partnership will enhance cooperation between Energy Web and SunSpec’s own Blockchain Work Group, while advancing the missions of both organizations. Energy Web’s global ecosystem of grid operators and other energy companies complements SunSpec’s ecosystem of leading renewable energy and DER tech companies.
“SunSpec’s focus on plug-and-play interoperability for solar PV and battery energy storage systems and Energy Web’s focus on building a public, open, digital ‘DNA’ for the future electricity system are a natural fit,” explained Jesse Morris, chief commercial officer of Energy Web. “As power grids around the world increasingly decentralize with DERs, the kinds of common standards and ‘soft’ infrastructure that we’re building will help speed innovation and adoption toward a low-carbon future.”
Last year saw 115 GWdc of new solar PV capacity come online worldwide, bringing global installed solar capacity to 627 GW. Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s most recent New Energy Outlook (2019) forecasts a further $4.2 trillion in solar investment and $843 billion in battery energy storage through 2050. One-third of new solar capacity is expected to be behind-the-meter distributed PV at homes and businesses.
“Distributed solar+storage is a cornerstone of the evolving electricity system,” added Tom Tansy, chairman of SunSpec. “As more markets move toward a digital smart grid, it is crucial to ensure that solar and storage assets are cybersecure, have verifiable identities, can participate in energy markets, and are ‘out of the box’ ready to perform as part of an integrated grid will be crucial. Our partnership with Energy Web is an exciting step in that direction.”
SunSpec and Energy Web are scoping their first joint projects currently.
About SunSpec
The SunSpec Alliance is a trade alliance of developers, manufacturers, and service providers, together pursuing information standards for the distributed energy industry. SunSpec standards address most operational aspects of PV and other distributed energy power plants on the smart grid — including residential, commercial, and utility-scale systems — thus reducing cost, promoting innovation, and accelerating industry growth. Nearly 100 organizations are members or business partners of the SunSpec Alliance, including global leaders from Asia, Europe, and North America. Membership is open to corporations, non-profits, and individuals. For more information about the SunSpec Alliance, or to download SunSpec specifications free of charge, please visit www.sunspec.org.
About Energy Web
Energy Web is a global, member-driven nonprofit accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by unleashing the potential of blockchain and decentralized technologies. EW focuses on our open-source, decentralized, digital technology stack — the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS) — to enable any device, owned by any customer, to participate in any energy market.
In mid-2019, EW launched the Energy Web Chain, the world’s first enterprise-grade, public, open-source blockchain platform tailored to the sector’s regulatory, operational, and market needs. The EW Chain anchors a broader technology stack known as the Energy Web Decentralized Operating System (EW-DOS), a blockchain-plus suite of middleware, toolkits, and other digital solutions to support the energy transition.
EW also fostered the world’s largest energy blockchain ecosystem, comprising utilities, grid operators, renewable energy developers, corporate energy buyers, IoT / telecom leaders, and others. More than two-dozen of those companies host validator nodes for the EW Chain. Energy Web has become the industry’s leading energy blockchain partner and most-respected voice of authority on energy blockchain.
For more, please visit https://energyweb.org.
CONTACTS
Thomas Semow, SunSpec
+1.510.541.2139 | thomas.semow@sunspec.org
Peter Bronski, Energy Web
+1.201.575.5545 | peter.bronski@energyweb.org